Hurricanes in the classroom

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From the course by University of Michigan

Hurricanes: What's Next?

42 ratings

University of Michigan

Hurricanes: What's Next?

42 ratings

Hurricanes: What's Next? is part of the University of Michigan's Teach-Out series. For more information, visit teachout.org.
The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane season has produced incredibly destructive storms, and has raised many questions. What drives a hurricane? How accurate are hurricane models? How do authorities prepare for hurricanes and, when destructive events like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma happen, how do we respond? Is this hurricane season a fluke, or should we start planning for more/similar storms? In this Teach-Out, we will explore the science of hurricanes, hurricane forecasting and monitoring, and with what confidence can we attribute these storms to a warming ocean.
A Teach-Out is:
-an event – it takes place over a fixed, short period of time
-an opportunity – it is open for free participation to everyone around the world
-a community – it will be joined by a large number of diverse individuals
-a conversation – an opportunity to give and take ideas and information from people
The University of Michigan Teach-Out Series provides just-in-time community learning events for participants around the world to come together in conversation with the U-M campus community, including faculty experts. The U-M Teach-Out Series is part of our deep commitment to engage the public in exploring and understanding the problems, events, and phenomena most important to society.
Teach-Outs are short learning experiences, each focused on a specific current issue. Attendees will come together over a few days not only to learn about a subject or event but also to gain skills. Teach-Outs are open to the world and are designed to bring together individuals with wide-ranging perspectives in respectful and deep conversation. These events are an opportunity for diverse learners and a multitude of experts to come together to ask questions of one another and explore new solutions to the pressing concerns of our global community. Come, join the conversation!
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From the lesson

Hurricanes: What's Next?

The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane season has produced an alarming frequency of destructive storms, and with them, many questions. What drives a hurricane? How accurate are hurricane models? How do authorities prepare for hurricanes and, when destructive events like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma happen, how do we respond? Is this a fluke, or something we should start planning for?
In this Teach-Out, we will explore the science of hurricanes, hurricane forecasting and monitoring, and with what confidence can we attribute these storms to a warming ocean.

Meet the Instructors

Perry Samson

Arthur F Thurnau Professor, Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, College of Engineering and Professor of Information, School of InformationCollege of Engineering; School of Information

All right, time for a question here, let me see here.

On your screen, you should see this image.

And on this image is every hurricane, typhoon and cyclone

and by the way all those three are the same thing, they're just different names.

We call them hurricanes in the Atlantic, they're called the cyclones down here

in Australia, they're called typhoons in the Pacific, same thing.

Here is the path of every one of them, since 1950.

And the question I am posing to you is this.

What spot, what parts of this image do not make sense to you?

And what you do, when I ask an image question like this,

is you put a dot on the map with your cursor, your mouse.

Click it.

And then you should have the opportunity to answer why you chose that spot.

It doesn't surprise me that we're getting answers all over the map.

There are lots of places here that are confusing, lots of questions to be asked.

So let's look.

First of all, I can't help but notice,

somebody's clicked in the middle of the continent.

>> [LAUGH] >> Why do the hurricanes not go towards

South America?

That's actually an excellent question.

There are lots of hurricanes here in the North Atlantic.

There's virtually, there's actually one in the South Atlantic.

What's that about?

And what you're gonna learn is this as we go through the,

through more lectures on this topic is that the dynamics of

the South Atlantic are wholly different than the North Atlantic.

In that the conditions it takes to form

a hurricane require that you have this perturbation that happens.

And the perturbation in the North Atlantic happens because of Africa.

Africa sends off these, we call them perturbations,

you will learn that they're called easterly waves.

Waves of wind coming off the coast of Africa.

Often associated with wind storms in Africa and sand storms in Africa.

And these sand storms and winds come off the coast of Africa, and they form

a profanation out here which helps become sort of the seed for hurricane formation.